I’ve learned a heck of a lot more about our big picture agriculture, appropriate land use, precision farming and adding value to our exports to get out of our traditional ‘commodities from the colonies’ history. Stay tuned for the next issue coming very soon – in fact real soon – I had to ride like the wind from the Manawatu late tonight to make deadline for press!

DJI AERIAL WINNER: ROB SUISTED: An early winter sunset cast warm light over the landscape as Rob Suisted travelled past Mt Ruapehu. Suspecting the foothills might reveal interesting textures and forms when seen from above, he pulled over to capture the scene with a drone—a spur of the moment decision aided by familiarity with the landscape.

Sharing a few recent client photos of installed splashbacks in kitchens and bathrooms. Especially love the NZ kelp seaweed cell structure image used in a shower splashback (bottom left). Click on image for a closer look:

We were commissioned to create large murals for exhibition use at the new Foxton experience, Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom. Given the large size and close viewing distances, we created specialist large files by stitching multiple medium format digital camera files to make truly huge files for stunning reproduction values. Here are some of the images used. Visit https://www.teawahou.com/Home. We worked with Workshop e, and they have photo credit for these images….

Back in 1999, as a young keen photog working on my first book, I wrote to Doug Kidd (Speaker of the House of Representatives) seeking permission to photograph MP’s sitting.

I had to don suit and tie to drag camera equipment and tripods into the Speaker’s Gallery. Some Minister’s of Parliament played up to the obvious arrival of a photographer. I also carried a heavy bag of medium format Bronica equipment, on which this photo was taken. BUT, then an event that still haunts me today happened…..

The Day I nearly accidentally sconed Winston Peters. The year was 1999.

As I finished and turned to leave, I shouldered my heavy medium format camera bag. The shoulder strap ripped off and the bag landed heavily on the handrail, teetering, before falling forwards to my feet. It could’ve gone the other way, and fallen 20 feet onto Winston Peters. It would have sconed him and probably made a thorough job of it. My blood ran cold as I headed off.

I sometimes wonder how things could’ve been different today. OSH hadn’t taken root then, so accidents were still happening in NZ; some could have even seen this as a good accident. One thing for sure would’ve been the publicity my book could’ve got – ‘the book that floored Winston’.

NZ’s Country Calendar TV show is the 2nd oldest TV programme in the world after Coro Street.

It was an honour to be commissioned to photograph the official 50th anniversary book to commemorate the milestone for TVNZ. It’s been a full on 6 month photographic journey, twice around NZ, poking my nose into so many interesting stories, and meeting lots of passionate interesting people around NZ.

Firstly, if you haven’t got a copy of this iconic book, get yourself along to my publisher and order a copy – you won’t be disappointed. I’m very proud of the quality of the photos created to tell each of 15 stories, and Matt Philp’s writing style is brilliant at capturing the tales. Here are a few favourites from the many images

Stu Muir overlooking his family farm and beloved Waikato River, from the ‘eco-lodge’ they’ve built for others to enjoy, Aka Aka, Franklin (54042QF00)

Stu Muir working with Tangata Whenua, and researchers to recover a 500 year old waka for restoration. Stu is fluent in Te Reo, and well respected. Numerous toanga are found by him, Aka Aka, Franklin (54052QF00)

The job wasn’t easy – turning up to live with complete strangers 24/7 for up to a week, while seeking their confidence to document their stories and poke a camera into their lives. It was stressful for them and me, but without exception everyone was incredibly hospitable and obliging which allowed me to tease out their stories and capture it within 8-10 frames.

Each image had to earn it’s spot, and often illustrate at least 2 concepts. Such as the photo below, it needed to be a portrait, talk of wetland restoration and Stu’s Kaitiaki role and his love of whitebaiting. It took some doing: Stu Muir runs a dairy farm, but is passionate about wetland restoration in the Waikato River Delta. This is what I came up with:And here’s how it was done – 2 days of planning/executing, screening water flow, and a lot of time coaxing shy whitebait within 50mm of my wide angle lens (the little guys take fright at their reflections and the tiniest vibration), while trying to hold a punt in the current (with 10mm free board), and keep the good natured Stu Muir from getting too bored. It was a success and a frame I’m proud of.

Jamie Steer questions the status quo around introduced species to New Zealand. Its fair to say his views are controversial, but he’s willingly made a target of himself. I was commissioned to shoot his portrait.

Playing around with the idea of hunting introduced species, and how Jamie is happy to be a target for debate, this is the work I did to make a very strong literal ‘story portrait’ to illustrate the interview for NZ Geographic Magazine:
And here are a few of the options supplied for the editor to consider:

Research shows* natural images, especially nature landscapes, reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure and increase feelings of well being in people.

Our need to connect with nature is inherent in us (Rob gave a talk about this recently at the Environmental Defence Society’s annual summit – video linked below).

Our health industry clients recognise this, and we’ve worked with them to bring NZ nature scenes to people who need the benefit of nature in their facilities.

The Auckland DHB have just used around 30 of our natural landscape images to produce super graphics for wards and treatment rooms, the feedback has been great:

New Auckland Hospital murals, by Rob Suisted

The Waikato DHB have also recognised the healing value of nature photography, and several of Rob’s images are now in use in their radiation treatment rooms, link below

Waikato Hospital murals by Rob Suisted

We specialise in professionally stitched panoramas for large graphic reproduction, which maintain integrity and quality when reproduced as large murals. We invest in quality equipment that provides better quality files than you’ll get from most places, for large reproductions. Drop us a line if you’re planning a stunning big mural. See some more of our murals here.

“On the wall in front of you is a huge photo of a New Zealand forest, with majestic tall-trunked trees soreal you feel your mind can go for a walk among them. The feature wall photographs are a beautiful forest scene by Rob Suisted, award winning New Zealand photographer”.

And here’s Rob’s opening address to the EDS Wild Places conference, talking about wilderness, the importance to the human condition, and some great NZ images. Grab a coffee and take a look:

Gareth Morgan is a strong climate change campaigner and author of a book on the subject, so a bit of creative dreaming arrived at a strong metaphorical image to capture the man’s character and one of his important messages.

This was my 17th trip to Antarctica. I drive boats and lecture, as a break from professional photography. So, we took a boat on Xmas day, out into flat water behind Plenneau Island, borrowed a face mask and snorkel, and dropped Gareth off on the best piece of ice we could find to represent the melting ice of climate change. The casual holding of the face mask and snorkel in normal business attire was designed to represent the foolish notion that many people carry, vis, that we have a ‘plan B’ somewhere for climate change. Plan B isn’t an option – just as a facemask isn’t here.

I’m proud of the result – strong metaphorical frame that captures Gareth Morgan in a striking way – no trickery, no post production work – simple. BUT check out the pile of comments on Gareth Morgan’s facebook page. It’s galling when some people, from the comfort of their home, suggest a great photo must be ‘photo-shopped’. *Cough* – THAT photo is the combination of skills learnt over a long time as a professional photographer, planning, a good creative process, and qualifications and experience operating boats on over 20 polar expeditions! Everyone is a cynic, a critic, or blimin both…

Rob Suisted polar guiding and boat driving

Anyway, here’s the NZ Geographic Magazine article the image was used in: Out in the Cold. And Gareth was a bloody good sort, keenly signing up to the idea, and willingly being marooned on a small ice floe while we (I and his family) drifted off without him, in the frozen middle of nowhere. Shot with a Pentax 645Z and DFA25mm lens.

NZ National Fieldays is the largest annual farming and agricultural trade show in New Zealand, and maybe the Southern Hemisphere.

Every year at Mystery Creek, Waikato, hosts over 1000 exhibitors and around 120,000 pairs of boots over a 4 day event (and presumably, the occasional dedicated pair of heels).

It has a rich history and tradition for over 45 years now (http://www.fieldays.co.nz/factandhistory ), and prizes are awarded to the best exhibitions. We have a strong connection supplying large high quality image files to exhibitors.

NZ Post commissioned me to shoot the covers of the NZ Stamp Collection (an annual book containing all the year’s new postage stamps) again this year. The theme is ‘Take a Closer Look’, and follows on from the previous 3 covers we’ve done together. This year Kauri Trees were our focus.

The most beautiful Kauri Tree (Agathis australis) in NZ

I was fortunate that last year I was taken to a very beautiful Kauri Tree, by a remarkable man called Kevin Prime. I was commissioned to shot his portrait for a book project, and wanted to photograph this humble man against the might of the majestic Kauri. Kevin knew just the tree and he introduced me to it. A minute after we arrived, in the peace of the calm forest, a quiet whirling sound started up, and got louder. What was it? Suddenly the tree’s seeds started landing on my head and shoulders. It’s had cast it’s seeds out onto us. The hair stood up on my arm as Kevin said how auspicious this was.

So when NZ Post wanted a kauri for their annual stamp collection book, I knew exactly which tree I wanted to showcase to the nation. Never before have I seen such a distinctive bark pattern on a Kauri Tree. The hammered texture of this one is very striking, and almost appears as an embossed surface on the book box set.

NZ Post's The NZ Collection, annual stamp book covers by Rob Suisted

If you’d like to see more of this beautful tree, or get a closer look at the distinctive bark patterning, have a look at our Kauri Tree photo collection.

I’ve twice been commissioned to shoot Dr Jan Wright’s portrait while she was the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I like making strong ‘story portraits’ – images that capture the essence, work, passion, or message of the subject. Dr Jan Wright was a perfect subject for this style.

Here’s the ‘official portrait of Dr Wright while in office. I wanted to put Dr Wright into nature, not just make it her back drop. The colours are very pleasing to my eye:
New Zealand Geographic commissioned me to record her portrait for the magazine. Here’s Dr Wright in her natural environment, with a carefully placed nod to the halls of government power, to signify the relationship and influence of her role. Here’s the link to the article.

About nine months back in invested in a Ricoh Pentax 645z camera body, and purchased nearly every medium format lens available (from super wide 25mm (approx 19mm in 35mm equiv.) to 400mm tele) for this wonderful new camera. I thought it was time to talk about the joy I’m getting from the amazing output quality I’m seeing.

I used to shoot medium format film cameras up to 6 x 9 colour transparencies. Shooting 35mm full frame digital is great, but when Ricoh Pentax brought out this camera I felt it was time to jump up. Sure, Canon has recently unveiled 50MP 35mm camera bodies, but to be honest, they won’t come close to the performance of this. The file sizes might be comparable, but the pixel size with the Canon is so small now, that the quality of output will be miserable in comparison. Check out the photo below for a large copy (which is 1/10th the size of the original by the way) – click on it and make sure you’re viewing at 100%. As you see, there’s no shadow detail. Infact, I’m finding I can shoot the Pentax 645z at 3200 ISO and the files are better than the best Canon 400 ISO files I’ve seen. It’s just luscious to shoot with and I still marvel at the results every day.

Incredible image quality – click for full screen view – make sure you have 100% viewing

It’s been a big investment in equipment, but as we specialise in very large reproductions (especially doing a lot of giant murals for clients) and have always aimed for the best quality output. It’s why we also maintain a top of the line Hasselblad Imacon Scanner for sucking the best out of our back collection of quality transparencies. The feedbck we’ve had from clients is very rewarding.

Today’s news carried an article on my photography work on the NZ Stamp annual, NZ postage stamps, and the NZ bank notes just annouced. Full story here.

Wellington photographer Rob Suisted, whose work features on stamps and on the newly designed New Zealand banknotes.

The article by Dave Crampton mentioned I’ve done previous NZ Post annual stamp book covers, so here’s some of the back story to those covers.

NZ Post annual stamp book covers by Rob Suisted, urging us to take a closer look at our native fauna

I’ve worked with Nicky Dyer of Strategy Design in Wellington on these for several years now. The 2012 cover used one of my favourite images, and the last couple of covers have been very interesting. 2013 cover involved filming rare NZ native geckos on a black background which involved an afternoon wrangling this cute little joker. 2014 proved to be much tougher.

Nicky called me and said they’d like to do a stunning cover focussing on our rare and little known giant carnivorous land snails, Powelliphanta. Jeepers I thought, it’s winter and they’re not going to be very mobile in the cold. Always up for a challenge I accepted.

The job involved setting up a makeshift macro studio in the back of my jeep, talking to snail experts, before heading across on the interisland ferry for a few days. Of course that night turned very cold, meaning that snails would not be active. Luckily I’d managed to get out at dusk and spend a few hours searching for snails. It took about an hour to find my first, and several others shortly after. I was fortunate as overnight a good dusting of snow meant searching become impossible.

Freezing cold, rare snail hunting

These unique snails require warmth to be active, and luckily with the sunny day, and black surfaces, it was enough to coax one out of it’s shell despite the cold air temperature. It did take about 4 hours though (mostly moving on the spot to warm my feet), and I got some stunning and unique portraits to do these giants proper justice. The textures, colours and form are beautiful and I enjoy looking at them.

I’ve been keeping a big secret for months – my photographs appear on all of them. I’m very proud about it, as you can imagine, to have you carrying my work in your wallets and purses. Click on the image for a closer look:

New Zealand bank notes redesigned from Rob Suisted photos

UPDATE: News article about the use of my images on the new currency bank notes, and NZ post stamp annual book cover.

First of our 2015 calendar creations have arrived. Here are 13 different titles we’ve done with John Sands New Zealand – part of a 17 year relationship we’ve had creating quality New Zealand calendars together. You’ll find them in most book shops, post offices, supermarkets throughout New Zealand. We never get tired of seeing them together, hot off the press.

Auckland City Hospital’s Motutapu Ward, the new Northern Region Haematology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, is using over 20 of our large murals.

The stunning facility has been co-designed with patients and has a range of unique features which have set a new standard in patient centred care. Former leukaemia patient and fundraising ambassador, Molly Rowlandson, says the new ward has exceeded all her expectations. ADHB press release

More research is showing that quality images of nature are important to our well being, and important in our lives. We enjoyed working with Klein (Architects of Specialised Environments) to get the best images – not only in subject, but in size and proportions to get the best quality reproduction.

There are three aspects for quality large reproductions: 1) Original image size before interpolation – i.e. the more pixels from the camera the better!, 2) reproduction size, how big is your mural going to be, and 3) viewing distance – how far is the view from the print? Viewing distance is often much neglected in consideration. E.g. a phone photo will work for a billboard size reproduction if the viewing distance is 100 metres away, but on a wall at a close viewing distance it will fail badily. If the print is viewed from a few metres then there is no substitute for professional files

We work really hard to provide image files that can go large, with close viewing distances. In fact, we’ve just invested in the new Pentax 645Z camera and full set of lenses, a camera of 51 megapixels per image. Professionally stitched image panoramas will make amongst the best image files for murals available anywhere.

We’ve been working with Kai Hawkins on some interesting projects lately. Firstly we completed the new Blenheim i-SITE visitor centre, and today we got photos of new bus shelters we’ve supplied some luscious large high quality images for great looking murals. Take a look:

Been lucky to spend some time hanging out with Kakapo, both in the wild and captivity, including one taking a major liking to me head.; a major treat in life. Another treat was seeing one of my Kakapo portraits used by Air New Zealand recently:

“You should come on the May autumn muster to Lake McRae.” said Jim Ward, Manager of Molesworth high country Station.

What an invitation; for those that know Molesworth Station you’ll understand the significance of such an invite! For those that know Lake McRae (see map at bottom), many will regard this as a holy land of sorts. To join in on the annual cattle muster to push 400 cattle over the Inland Kaikoura Ranges to their traditional winter pastures is epic. Not only is it regarded as one of the highest cattle musters in the world (at over 1400m/4700ft), but it’s also one of the most remote seldom visited spots in New Zealand. With three stockmen & horses involved, and small backcountry hut, it’s also a very few lucky folks that have ever participated in this 100 year tradition. More folks have climbed Everest than been here. This is not a commercial trip, but a unique rare opportunity to join the stockmen on part of their annual work programme in the high country.

For the last 18 months I’ve been working on a book about this historic high country station with Harry Broad. Lance McCaskill wrote a seminal book about the first 50 years of Molesworth history. We’re bringing the history of this fascinating iconic high country run up to date. It’s New Zealand’s largest farm at 500,000 acres and sits nestled amongst mountain ranges between Blenheim, Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura.

Back at my office in Wellington, Nina, my Business Manager, was excited. She’d grown up with horses and rode professionally back in Sweden. On weekends she trains riders and horses. You will be fine, I’ll teach you she said.

So started a wonderful bi weekly programme designed to advance me from newbie to competent horse rider in less than a month, but most importantly to toughen up my softer spots. Each Tuesday and Thursday we shut the office at noon, headed for Wainuiomata and climbed on horses. My third lesson as cantering bareback. They pushed me hard to learn on the crash course but I’m very grateful now. Luckily I apparently picked things up fast, learning I think more about animal behaviour and psychology than staying on Red, Ray, or Teddy, the three boys I learnt to ride on. Bruce and Kelly’s property in Wainuiomata had a great variety of steep hills and trails to explore between flat work. Things started to arch and hurt in places you’d normally only see with a mirror; apparently a sign you’re doing it right. Weird that.

One Sunday night the phone went; it’s Jim. “Can you get down tomorrow? We’re bringing it forward due to weather”. I hurriedly finished my GST tax return, a quick pack and assemblage of equipment and I was on the ferry heading for the South Island.

I arrived late evening, got a bit of gear organised, hit the hay around midnight, to be up a 4.30am for breakfast with Jim & Tracey and the three stockmen that I’d be riding with for the next 3 days, Andy McLachlan, Cory Hollister and Tom O’Sullivan. Nine months before I’d met these guys on their first week on Station as they learnt horse shoeing from visiting farriers so they could look after their horses in the remote out stations through the year (a skill we’d rely on later…